Is Venezuela's Government Silencing Globovision?

Globovision owner Guillermo Zuloaga announced on Monday that he would sell his TV channel to Juan Domingo Cordero, an insurance tycoon with connections to the government. This is a file picture from November 18, 2009.

Juan Barreto/AFP/Getty Images

Globovisión, the Venezuelan TV channel that has been most critical of the Chávez government, will change owners in April, in a transaction that could drastically change its editorial policies.

The twenty-four-hour news channel will be sold after the April 14th presidential election to Juan Domingo Cordero, an insurance tycoon who is said to have a cozy relationship with Venezuelan government officials.

In a statement issued on Monday after rumors of the sale began circulating, Globovisión's current owner, Guillermo Zuloaga, said that he had to sell the channel because it could no longer withstand pressure on several fronts. That pressure, he said, included the Venezuelan government trying to force them off the air by denying them a renewal of their broadcasting license.

"We are unviable economically because our earnings no longer cover our costs. We can't even raise [employee] salaries enough to compensate for inflation and devaluation. We are unviable politically because because we are in a country that is totally polarized, and on the opposite side of a government that wants to see us fail. And we are unviable in the legal sense, because our broadcasting license is ending soon, and there is no will to renew it," Zuloaga wrote.

Hypothetically, the channel's fate might have changed if opposition candidate Henrique Capriles won the upcoming presidential election. Its broadcasting license, at the very least, would be guaranteed.

But Zuloaga said that the channel's financial situation was so dire that he decided not to risk it, and instead took the offer by Cordero. If nothing else, the move ensures there will be no mass firings of Globovisión staff.

Zuloaga did not say in the statement whether the channel's editorial policies would change when Cordero takes over after the elections, mentioning only that Mr. Cordero was a "successful man in financial circles" whom he had known for many years. Local media outlets also reported that Cordero comes from a wealthy Venezuelan family, and that he is actually the uncle of Zuloaga's wife.

Venezuelan media have also been quick to point out that Cordero has profited from deals with the Venezuelan government, including the nationalization of a bank in which he was a significant shareholder.

On Twitter, people who know Cordero have speculated that he could be a frontman in what essentially would amount to a government takeover of Globovisión.

Andres Canizales, a communications professor at the Andres Bello University in Caracas, said that the sale of Globovisión was an "ominous sign" for freedom of speech in Venezuela.

Canizales said that, in the run up to the last presidential elections, he conducted a study which demonstrated that Globovisión was the only TV channel that gave in-depth coverage to the campaign of opposition candidate Henrique Capriles. The other channels only gave Capriles an average of three minutes of airtime per day.

If Globovisión does change its editorial policies, it would not be the first critical voice to be silenced in Venezuela. In 2007, opposition-leaning TV channel RCTV was taken off the air after the Venezuelan government chose not to renew its broadcasting rights. Private TV channels Venevision and Televen have stayed on, but have largely moderated their political coverage for fear of being silenced.